PAX 2011: Fez Impressions

I was very excited to finally get my hands on Fez. It’s been in development for over three years now, and it seems like it will be worth the wait.

The premise behind Fez is that it’s a 2D platforming game with a distinctive, retro artstyle and a game mechanic that revolves around changing the perspective of the camera, showing the landscape from different angles, which allows you to reach previously unreachable areas. Seeing this mechanic in action is always impressive, and it’s a very fun puzzle mechanic to play with. Just describing it doesn’t do it justice (which is why there is a video at the bottom of this post).

As far as gameplay goes, I thought the jumping was a little bit floaty, but not so much as to make it awkward. What I really enjoyed was the attention to small details, like the music becoming muffled when your character is behind a wall. I’m also a huge fan of the chunky-pixel artstyle that Polytron have created.

I can easily say that Fez is my game of the show. I will be waiting for this to hit XBLA like a two year old child waiting for a juice cup. That is to say not very patiently.